Brokerage group Plus500 released a trading update for the first quarter of 2025 on Monday morning.
The company saw total revenues of $205.8m for the quarter, marking a 13% year on year uplift compared to 2024.
Profit was up even more, with Plus500 saying it delivered EBITDA of $93.8m for the first three months of the year. That was up 23% on the first quarter of last year.
However, perhaps the most striking feature of the report was some detail on Plus500’s futures business.
The London-listed firm said that revenue from non-OTC products, which is basically its US futures business, was equivalent to 12% of first quarter revenues – or just shy of $25m. The figure for 2024 was 10%.
The broker also said that it expects those figures to continue for the rest of the year, with revenues from US futures topping $100m this year.
This is a fairly remarkable figure when you think that Plus500 entered the market in 2021 via the acquisition of Cunningham Commodities for $35m.
Although the broker will have had to have made further investments in brand and operations, it’s plausible the margin on the business as a standalone entity is such that the company will recoup that entire initial investment this year as profit.
It will be interesting to see if that 12% proportion grows as well, given that Plus500 recently acquired Indian broker Mehta Equities, an Indian equities and derivatives broker.
